We generally walk around the neighborhood to see what we can of nature.

There are rocks to pocket and bird feathers to gather, wild flowers and leaves to collect.

We take note of the "cloud pictures", what's in bloom and the sunshine and shadows.

If the weather is warm, we have a place where we remove our shoes and socks, and wiggle our toes in the cool green grass - just to enjoy the sensation of free toes.
We even stop to watch creepy crawly things in the dirt.

Last summer strong winds blew tumbleweed all around my place.

My 5 year old grandson collected them for hours, piling them against the house where they would be protected from the wind.

He stocked the porch with a hundred of them, and when I protested
that 1000 tumbleweeds were enough,
he offered to share them with neighbors who were outside.

Most of them graciously accepted his bouquets.

To this day,
I have tumbleweeds decorating my antiques booth at
The Gallery,
because he insisted I should take them to the shop
and sell them to people who didn't have tumbleweeds!
Cute Kid! I like the way he thinks!

He was mesmerized with the beauty of these natural elements.

I hope I can inspire
my little ones
to enjoy collecting specimens of nature.
It's never too early to beginexamining the bounty all around us.
To see the perfection of the Creator's artwork
is to begin to appreciate and understand true beauty,

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

I imagine every person is something of an artist in their own right.
Whether one paints or bakes, sings or dances, writes poetry or prose,
is a sculptor or dressmaker,
a
beautician or a bridge builder,
we use our particular abilities to express ourselves to the world.

I spent many years in my young life determining where I would make my mark -
would I become a writer, a public speaker, an astronaut or a stewardess?

My mother taught me to read when I was four.
I was voracious, devouring anything and everything I could. When I started school I discovered the Encyclopedia Britannica, and was immediately fascinated with the
American Presidents and First Ladies.
My mother always told me I could be anything I wanted to be
when I grew up,
and I wanted to be the
President.

I asked questions . . .
At a tender age I perceived that the President of our country had people who told him
what he could and couldn't do.

I began to consider Queen, instead.

The Queen seemed to have so much more power, and fewer people who bossed her around.
I asked my mother how one went about becoming Queen.
I learned, to my dismay, that you needed to be born into a royal lineage, or to marry into one. . .

. . . this was more complicated than I had initially thought,
but, by the time I was about six, I was set upon finding a prince to marry.
The prince I could find the most written about was Prince Charles of England.
I was not impressed . . .

There was no limit to my imagination, and I was delighted to read everything I could find
about royalty, throughout my elementary school years.
I eventually decided the potential for meeting a suitable prince was limited, so I moved on to other
professional possibilities.
(truthfully . . . I'm still watching, just in case . . . )

I explored areas . . . specifically those where my personal skills and wishes might be executed
without someone telling me I had to conform to rules.
I determined this profession would need to be in circles where no rules existed.
My mother assured me that rules existed in all areas of life, but wished me luck in my pursuit, and encouraged me to become anything I desired to be.

Artist!
I was enamored with the potential of being able to create something,
and having no one assert that it was "wrong", or that I couldn't do it my way.
Artists were always right. They expressed their views in their work - and must be accepted for whom they were!

Unfortunately, the art teachers in my elementary years believed in coloring inside the lines.
I was beginning to believe I would need to start my own country.

For the next fifteen years I struggled with my artistry, my self expression, my self realization.
I married and settled into a new home, and took delight in all aspects of life. . . .
particularly the endeavors of feathering my little nest.

I enjoyed the fact that I could mix paints to achieve the precise shade of wall I wanted.
I decided to paint the four walls of my first living room four ever-so-slightly different shades of the same color, so that daylight moving across them would create a variety of nuances. Sunrise, mid-day, sunset, evening incandescent light . . . oh, I was in heaven!

I had a huge palette, and could make my world anything I desired! In the eight years we lived in that home, I painted and repainted and painted again . . . so thrilled to be able to change the mood and ambiance. I explored the differences in seasonal light, and discovered the variety to be had from cool or warm or full spectrum light bulbs!

Mirrors were magic! I could reflect and enhance the view, add depth to a room . . .
the possibilities were endless!
I wall papered over the painted walls.
I stripped wallpaper and textured the walls with plaster.
OOH LA LA!
I was queen of my own little country.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

There are particular phrases I rarely hear anymore, but which carry me back in an instant

to a gentler time.

They were the colloquialisms of people whose ancestors immigrated from rural Ireland, England and Scotland, settled in the Appalachian mountains, and bore generations of hardworking rural descendants.

They were clannish, in the sense that communities remained secluded and outsiders had little influence on them for 150 years or more.

They spoke in the rural dialects brought with them.

Though, over time, as they became more integrated with other society their

language patterns evolved, melded and became more modern,

some idiosyncrasies continued.

There is haunting folk music from these indigenous people

that can barely be considered American English.

It's unique qualities have all but died out with the

great - great - great - grandchildren

of those who sang it.

Along with the old language idioms

there are some strangely unique phrases that you're just not likely to hear anywhere else.

When I was a child, I learned if you can't run with the big dogs, just stay on the porch.
When everything was going great, you were in high cotton.
If things were going poorly, you had a hard row to hoe.
If you thought you could do something, you "might could".
Usually, you needed to do what you were told to do, but occasionally you got to have your druthers.
(You could do what you'd rather do.)

One of my girlfriends has a couple of particularly southern phrases

that I always get a chuckle from:

"That town, (store, party, street, etc.), is so empty

you could swing a dead cat and not hit anybody."

Truth is, you could have swung anything and not hit anybody,

but the dead cat is a really great effect.

And, in defining a stranger,

"Why, we didn't know him from Adam's house cat."

If you wanted to eliminate something, you were gettin' shed of it.

In the south, a person who doesn't take proper care in examining an item before buying it,

(or a potential spouse, before marrying them),

has bought a

"pig in a poke".

(To understand that, you'd have to know that a poke is a burlap bag,

through which you wouldn't know if the pig was worthy or not.)

You might say they fell for something they should have been bright enough to see coming.

If a thing is supposed to be a certain way, you may hear that it

"belongs to be".

Example: "Don't those children belong to be in school?"

There was a particular fondness for archaic words, and people were known to:
hanker after something,
conjure up an idea,
cipher the price of an item,
dawdle around instead of getting on with the job,
jaw about things, or jaw someone's ear off,
and occasionally to be tetched,
(which could mean to be affected by, or made insane by something, such as grief, or too much sun.)

When someone is preparing to do a task,

or even just thinking about it,

they're "fixing to" get it done.

I suppose they had a variety of issues pertaining to the subject,

that they needed to organize or assemble before actually

doing the job.

Y'uns

is the accepted hyphenation for "you ones", which is an endearing term of possession.

I've worked in rain, hail, snow, high winds, scorching heat and suffocating humidity.

Once in Texas, as I was hauling a load of treasures to the truck, a vendor approached me and said, "you come sit down - you look like you're going to faint from heat stroke."

He then proceeded to pour a bottle of water over my head.Friendly guy . . . he probably saved me from keeling over in the 102 degree heat.There's nothing like Texas hospitality!

Speaking of hospitality, there are few people anywhere as friendly as junkers for kindness, helpfulness and hospitality.

They lend a hand loading and unloading trailers and trucks. They'll hook up and pull your rig from the mud you've spun yourself into.They'll take you home to supper and tell you where the next great pickin' spot is.

They're known for inviting you to join them rocking on the front porch with an iced tea at the end of a long hard day.

They share stories, and welcome weary travelers,

and bake some really fine piesin my experience.

We may look a little rough around the edges,a mite frayed and scuffed,but hard work has it's reward.